sgtfda
Bronze Member
$1300 gold market is the break even point for most gold mines. Need I say more. Unless you are on the Discovery Chanel and living on show money.
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$1300 gold market is the break even point for most gold mines. Need I say more. Unless you are on the Discovery Chanel and living on show money.
As I recall, those USGS records were public records. You can believe they've all been looked at by experienced hands. Very few people who follow this TNet category are experienced miners. Some are though, and some of these seem to be the most skeptical.
... Gold mining companies will mine 1ppm gold. (one part per million/one oz/ton) They do not stop mining at $1300/oz. They may require 2ppm instead of 1ppm if the price drops below a certain mark. If the price dropped to $700/oz they would require more ppm they wouldn't stop mining. ...
Mining companies take years or decades sampling and defining ore bodies. Soil and stream samples are only that - snapshots of what's on the ground surface, not below. Minable ore bodies usually lie underneath the ground, beneath uneconomical tonnage that has to be removed before the paying ore is exposed. The companies develop mining plans that look years into the future. If the price of gold drops, they don't 'move to better ore'. If better ore was available, they'd mine it first. Sarge was about right - most mines spend $1000 or more per ounce to recover gold from open pit/leach gold mines, which most are nowadays. If gold dropped to $700, guess what? The company would not move to better ore because better ore isn't sitting there waiting for them. Like I said above, if it were, that's what they'd be mining to begin with. At $700, they'd be losing money, and yes, if the numbers were bad enough, they'd quit mining and wait for the price to come back.
Not talking about huge company's but a small operation. I have friends in the business and they are hurting. I buy gold from these guys for my club and the supply is drying up. Everyone is shutting down.
Mining companies take years or decades sampling and defining ore bodies. Soil and stream samples are only that - snapshots of what's on the ground surface, not below. Minable ore bodies usually lie underneath the ground, beneath uneconomical tonnage that has to be removed before the paying ore is exposed. The companies develop mining plans that look years into the future. If the price of gold drops, they don't 'move to better ore'. If better ore was available, they'd mine it first. Sarge was about right - most mines spend $1000 or more per ounce to recover gold from open pit/leach gold mines, which most are nowadays. If gold dropped to $700, guess what? The company would not move to better ore because better ore isn't sitting there waiting for them. Like I said above, if it were, that's what they'd be mining to begin with. At $700, they'd be losing money, and yes, if the numbers were bad enough, they'd quit mining and wait for the price to come back.
Is there such a thing as the Lost Dutchman's Mine syndrome? Or is there really a curse that affects the mind? Or something else?
It costs the same to run a ton of material no matter if it contains 1ppm gold or 5ppm or 100ppm. It's the ppm and the amount that you can run that matters a whole lot more than the spot price of gold.
chlsbrns, good luck with whatever it is you're doing. I don't really have time to respond to your posts anymore.
Chribrn; Ihate to say this,but you are soooo wrong.
Incidentally just how many of these move on to a better property are there? If they are available why not go there first?
And on---?
Don Jose de La Mancha
I couldn't figure out what it was he's doing here either which is why I had to put him on ignore - didn't have time to try to follow the logic and purpose behind the posts. The constant attitude is no help either. "Ignore" is rarely used by me, but it's there for a reason
This whole thread belongs under the Hard Rock Mining, Arizona or maybe Prospecting sections anyway.